Last Thursday, London’s High Court ruled that the British government’s approval of the planned Sizewell C nuclear plant in southeast England was lawful. Britain approved the plant last summer, and announced plans in the fall to allocate $895 million to the plant and take 50% stake during its development (Reuters). A campaign group, Together Against Sizewell C, challenged the plant’s approval, arguing the government failed to consider the environmental impact of the project. 

At a hearing in March, the campaign group contended the government failed to consider alternatives to nuclear power to reach its emissions goals (Reuters). Judge David Holgate dismissed their challenge, ruling that "[t]he claimant's argument depends upon an illegitimate attempt to rewrite the government's policy aims by pretending that the central policy objective is at a higher level of abstraction, namely to produce clean energy, without any regard to diversity of energy sources and security of supply” (BBC). 

According to the project’s developers, the French energy giant EDF, the reactors in the Sizewell C plant are expected to generate 3.2 gigawatts of electricity—enough to power six million homes—and will be operational by mid-2034 (Reuters).